When I told Cami I was doing a comic about Miss March, she had no idea what I was talking about. I think this teaches us an important lesson about marketing. Whereas I seemed to encounter a commercial for this film every four seconds on MTV and G4, it's evident that the studio was not doing much by way of advertising on HGTV or TLC.
Just an observation.
Then again, considering Miss March came in 10th this weekend, maybe they didn't advertise enough? I'm not even sure why I'm going out of my way to make a joke about it except I couldn't think of anything funny to go along with Race to Witch Mountain.
This has nothing to do with the movie, but writing a joke about Playboy got me thinking about the first time I encountered the magazine. I was 8 years-old and was over at a friend's house. He broke out a few copies that belonged to his dad. It couldn't be a more cliche telling if you tried. Although I remember this kid was maybe a year older than me and, even at my own young age, I found it unfair that he had access to this kind of stuff when I didn't.
In hindsight, I kind of have to wonder what kind of Dad leaves nudie magazines somewhere easily accessible for his 7 year-old son to find them.
I never really got into Playboy. I remember thinking when I got to college that I would get a subscription. But I didn't have a credit card to get a subscription and I didn't have the nerve to go to a magazine shop and to one. So, instead, I read Maxim for a year. Then I realized that Maxim is basically Playboy for guys that don't have the nerve to buy Playboy and gave up entirely.
Maybe it didn't matter. I had a roommate in college who had a poster of a woman taking her top off and he positioned it opposite the door so that you were greeted with it every time you waked in the room. It was a real crowd-pleaser on Parent's Weekend. Nevermind asking Cami to come over. I didn't spend very much time in my room that year. Seriously - where do you even buy posters of topless women? Even Spencer's Gifts draws the line at underboob.
You may have read the news that Watchmen wasn't able to hold on to the top spot at the box office this weekend. In fact, it was down 67%, which is kind of shocking for an event film like this. Or at least for a film with so much hype surrounding it. Even Speed Racer only dropped of 53%.
What does this mean? Well, I think it means that negative word of mouth not only caught up with Watchmen, but it dragged it into an alley and suffocated it. I guess David Hayer's plea fell on deaf ears.
I don't take in particular glee in reporting Watchmen's failure. If anything, I'm disappointed that it might keep Warner Bros. from releasing a more thorough Director's Cut.
But I'd be lying if I didn't admit some satisfaction for keeping my expectations at a level where I wouldn't end up feeling hurt by an inferior product. For better or for worse, Zach Snyder delivered pretty much what I expected him to.
And that's all she wrote.
That's about all she wrote for me, too. Incidentally, if you visited the site over the weekend and left a comment on any of the blog posts, they were probably tied up in Feedback Purgatory as I was out of town over the weekend on a little mini vacation. I went with Cami and my sister-in-law to the Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, Illinois.
This is how we kick off Spring Break in the Brazelton family. Not with warm-weather destinations, cocktails or wet t-shirt contests. We keep it educational.
At any rate, if you left a comment over the weekend, they've all since been approved. Most of them revolved around Watchmen. So you can either go back into those blogs and continue the conversation or pick up where you left off here!
Talk to you soon!
